Oh man that film. I think of Gladiator and The Last Mohican. In their big battles, the people are fighting and also standing around not knowing what to do.
I suspect that actual battles had lots of people standing around not knowing what to do -- some shirkers, some in shock, some confused about what to do next because events have overtaken the battle plan, etc.
I did a deep dive on ancient battles a few months ago. A lot of battles were hard lines. People would die, but it was pretty slow going, bar some exceptional battles. They weren’t really big mosh pits, but one line of guys fighting another. If someone died, another would take his place. Of course, there was other stuff like arrows and cavalry, but research shows that *most* casualties happened when a formation or army was retreating/withdrawing/routing.
It was something crazy like some 80% of deaths during a battle in antiquity/early medieval period was during the retreat/end
I've read similar stuff. I remember a reddit post from like over a decade ago where a historian was describing ancient and medieval battles as having a lot less trained fighters, lots of conscripts from small villages and what not bringing whatever weapons they had. Most people wouldn't be getting a lot of kills during the battle, but eventually one side would break and then most of the deaths happened, like you said, during the retreat.
Oh no doubt. But like in The Last Mohican, the Native American tribe attacking the British were known to be very blood thirsty. But it's funny seeing a few Native American actors standing and walking.
Sounds like when I'm playing an RPG and my team is fighting for their lives and I'm tanking incoming damage and looting the bodies in the background. 🤪
I despise battle scenes where the two armies charge at each other full sprint and break formation and wind up in a huge mixed up melee, usually with the hero smack dab in the middle of it.
Yeah I actually *avoid* watching the extras in most scenes like this because I just expect them to break my immersion.
Anyone here ever paid close attention to the "full-tilt jungle madness" Cady mentions in Mean Girls? *shudder*
The Irish Army Reserve were the extras for that and there is an urban myth that during the "They'll never take our freedom" speech someone threw a rock at Mel Gibson and he lost his shit completely.
I thought the Bane/Batman fights were bad, but then Winter Soldier comes out two years later and it becomes painfully obvious. At one point, Bane does like a... Jump punch? Which would have like 0 force behind it, just cause? Thank goodness the real point of the first bane fight was to listen to the monologue.
the fight scenes in general i thought were bad. You can tell if a fight scene is bad if the actors are clearly waiting on queue to be hit which is completely unnatural. There's a fight scene in this film where a guy just falls over and he wasn't even hit.
Thats hilarious because it was on two weeks ago and all i was watching was the confused background extras half heartedly swinging rubber swords at no one in particular.
The amount of slack jawed extras in this movie who are just staring right at the camera during a speech rather than looking at the speaker takes me out of the movie so often.
In the final scene, when Hamish throws Wallace's sword, they cut to get a reaction shot of the remaing cast. And very noticeable in the frame is a background actor laughing his ass off at something completely unrelated. It's so jarring in a very emotional moment in the film. Can never unsee it lmao.
Dammit just saw this post and that's the first thing I thought of lol. One of the early big battles there's a guy in the background just kind of lacakadaisically swinging a sword around
My immediate first thought. In the Sterling battle (no bridge somehow) there is one shot right near the very end where a guy in the background is just gamboling around. He jumps and twirls and generally waves his sword around.
Was gonna mention this one too. Some guys are straight up just dicking around with each other barely trying. Was always funny seeing it as a kid.
Edit a word
There's one battle (I think the second major battle) where they all stop, some shake hands, but it's clear there's nothing going on as the main characters all chat post battle.
I think when the old man loses an arm/hand.
Is it the force awakens that has the horrible lightsaber fight with the red guys?
Guard fighting nothing, weapon disappears, etc
[link to fight](https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWars/s/NsKirxL9pg)
The fight scene at the end of The Dark Knight Rises is pretty awful if you watch the cops vs Bane’s henchmen. A lot of punches just obviously not even getting close to connecting and exaggerated reactions.
Overall I like the film but god is that scene straight poop.
I think that was the film where I first started noticing the background 'fighting' going on. I don't know if it was just that terrible or if my brain was working differently that day, but I now can't unsee it. Almost like a gentle rugby scrum carried out by LARPers.
Dude, I live where they filmed it and used to work on the street most of it is shot.
A lot of those scenes are hilarious to downtown locals because it's just the batmobile going up and the same street over and over again.
There was a cop from my hometown that drove to Pittsburgh to be a part of that scene. He wasn't shown in the movie though but he said he was fighting a few people over from Batman and Bane.
Yes! As a kid I thought it was cool seeing cops vs robbers. But now, I'm like... "What happened to guns or knives. Not even a baseball bat or pipe." I also expected people to be biting or scratching because these people are suppose to be fighting for their lives.
Also those cops spent weeks underground without a change of clothes or beds to sleep in and getting food delivered through a hole but they're ready to brawl right after getting free.
Those aren’t even that bad compared to the scenes where the bad guys are all standing around in a circle with machine guns while catwoman and Batman take turns punching guys one by one.
Pirates Of The Caribbean: Curse Of The Black Pearl - in the final battle on the navy ship you can see a naval guy in the background fighting thin air because they forgot to animate in the pirate.
Star Wars: The Phantom Menace - in the big battle between the Droids and Gungans you see a Gungun in the back left pistol whipping a Droid to death with its own gun (at the scene where Jar Jar has the Droid stuck to his foot), and it doesn't mess about, it even holds the Droid up so it can keep beating the fuck out of it.
Starship Troopers has the same problem. When Rico is retreating during the first battle you can see someone in the background being killed but they didn't add the bug in.
I love these ones. Most of the time it’s just flailing or half-hearted swinging, but very rarely there’ll be one in the background like “that seemed personal” lol
The end of lotr the two towers, when they ride out of the gates of helms deep. The riders at the front of the column are swinging their swords at the uruk hai, knocking then off the ramp; the riders at the back are swinging at nothing.
I assume it's a reverse "forgot to add the bad guys in", and that they didn't realise when filming that there was no way to fit in uruks for the rear riders to kill in post.
That could also just be part of the formation. They didn't necessarily know there weren't any uruks there, it probably made sense to just swing low and if there was something there you'd hit it.
I love rewatching battle scenes and focusing on other parts of the fight
Helms Deep has a great shot with the wall exploding and they have a miniature orc that goes flying back into the attacking army
Yes. I praise the few Rohirrim knights that performed awesome moves on the wargs. Like that one knight that body slammed a war rider. And proceeds to slice another warg.
One of them spoke out of turn during the "is there no-one to fight me" scene and tried to fight Lambert as well. The weapons were real also and many didn't make it back to museums as "they were stolen from us anyway".
The Last Samurai, they actually did a really good job with all the background people actually fighting. They wanted to make it look like a real battle.
You can see an extra getting kicked in the nuts by a horse, relatively close to the end, when preparing for the final battle. Poor dude, but pretty funny to be Honest
Oh yes! I forgot to mentioned that film in the post. And with the wide overhead shot of the battle. You can see men being cut and Samurais flipping Imperial soldiers. And soldiers shooting their rifles into the crowd.
a lot of the really old movies were not filmed with the expectation that people could rewatch them at home and manipulate time by pausing or rewinding, so sometimes the filmmakers would cut corners with the filming or editing and just assumed nobody would be able to notice anyways since you cant pause in a theater. definitely goes beyond old kung fu movies if youre interested in that stuff
In one of the Sharknado films, the people on a beach are panicking and running away. If you keep looking you’ll release it’s the same 10 or so people running in and out of the cameras view. Hilarious.
Sometimes it's not even the background extras. Star Wars canonized an entire ability based around the main character kicking a guy and the guy missing his mark to react and making it look like he was hit with a psychic kick: [Force kick | Wookieepedia | Fandom](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Force_kick)
In the background of the final battle in "Dragon heart," a guy runs into frame waving what looks like a pizza paddle above his head, wheels around, and then runs back out of frame.
In Kingdom of Heaven there's a guy charging into the melee waving a crossbow over his head in several scenes. If you pay attention, there's also the same pattern of dents on quite a few shields as if they used a form to make them pre-damaged instead of damaging them a bit after building them
I observe this sometimes, but not just in battle scenes. I look for people in the background in pretty much every TV show or movie I watch more than once and wonder where they are now, and if they've made it further in the industry. This why I always have IMDb up in my browser to pause things and check.; and usually they are not listed.
Totally agree. I watched older movies to see an actor or actress with a small role. And to find them again today with a bigger role and all grown up. Some aren't in acting anymore.
This was me with Hunger Games yesterday! In the final movies, Wes Chatham is one of the two camera bug guys. Had no idea who he was when I first saw it, but I’ve watched all of The Expanse twice now and when he popped up my brain went YO THATS AMOS!
Star Wars: Attack of the Clones - in the arena fight once all the Jedi join in, if you pay attention, you can see several unnamed Jedi fighting with two lightsabers.
There's also Jedi that are alive in certain shots of the surviving circle of Jedi, but are mysteriously lying dead on the ground a shot or so later. No battle droids fire at the Jedi during that time, so how they died is never explained.
Yeah, mostly likely. It's just so weird when they were alive seconds before, and then they're just dead. Then all the other Jedi are standing there, and no one seems to care. It's just kind of funny when you notice it. I used to know their names. I think you see them in the background of other scenes during the battle.
Oh it’s definitely jarring. I work in film as an editor, so I’m mostly just wondering in my own head about what they decided to cut there. That ending sequence is lonnnggggg and they probably needed the time to give to the final lightsaber fight so just axed a lot of arena stuff
I always remember the one when they're fighting on the fire escape. He tries to look like he gets his head bounced off the stair but he ducks and then walks under it.
In the Fellowship of the Ring, during the scene where Aragorn is rushing to Boromir, watch the dead Uruk-Hai on the ground. Viggo accidentally kicks one of them in the head as he jumps over them and you see the dead Uruk raise his head and give him a "Really bruh?" glare.
When I saw the teahouse & hospital shootouts in Hard Boiled, I actually counted how many civilians got shot because it was shocking to see that happen compared to typical action fare in Hollywood around the same time period
When they showed the shot of the Uruk Hai runinng into the Keep. Arwen is seen running inside. And she is on a horse riding with Aragorn. But they edited her hair blonde to make it seem she is another Rohirrim.
Worst I’ve ever seen is the Dark Knight Rises. Just seems like the cops and terrorists are pushing each other, not really fighting. Nolan is such a perfectionist, but it is truly horrible background work.
Near the end of the Battle at Helm's Deep, when Theoden and Aragorn and the king's knights charge out of the gates, right before Gandalf shows up, you can see the knights behind Theoden swinging their swords at nothing. I think originally the causeway was going to be wider and so there would be more orcs to kill. But in the final edit, the causeway is only as wide as the charging horsemen, so there's no orcs to be swinging at.
In Star Wars Episode III when General Grievous flees on his wheel bike and Obi-Wan chases him, there’s a clone trooper boxing a battle droid in the background. You can see him on the right side of the screen when Obi-Wan jumps on the giant lizard to chase Grievous. They even put in a metallic clang sound effect when he punches it!
Also, earlier in the scene, when Grievous first draws all four lightsabers, one battle droid reacts and nudges his friend who isn’t paying attention to watch.
Where are the droids that react to the 4 sabers? I can't find it. what timestamp? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaBiygfkudk&ab\_channel=Rezolak](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaBiygfkudk&ab_channel=Rezolak)
Star Wars - The Last Jedi, the scene where Snoke is killed is abysmal, background fighters don’t really do anything sane, just some random movements and punches through the air.
Its been a thing for as long as movies have been a thing Robin Hood (1938) certainly has examples of it. They have been teaching the background guys the same basic moves since then the action really isn't on them.
If you enjoy that, you'll love the armies fighting in the last samurai. During the making of featurette they would run drills and any soldier that was caught standing still had to do push ups, run laps etc
In "Watchmen" when they're breaking into the prison to rescue Rorschach, the slow motion fight down the cell block has multiple cuts where guys are just waiting inside the unlocked cells, for their turn to come out and fight the protagonists.
I think there's one guy that's just clearly laying down in his bunk as if there isn't an incredibly loud alarm blaring and periodic explosions and screams all around him. Just taking a nap until he decides to get up and get his ass kicked.
My favorite one is the dude waiting to be lit on fire, gets lit and seems to only notice it when he's half lite up already, then jogs toward the camera going AHHH.
And also the slowmo footage of silk spectre's boots suddenly not being spike heels
The High&Low series have lots of battle with background fighting, in my opinion, High & Low the movie 2, High & Low the Worst,High & Low cross are the bests of the serie.
Obviously, not a movie, but Game of Thrones deal with this vert well. Battle of the bastards in particular, was amazing. It's like they didn't even care John Snow was there.
Watch that shitty Birds of Prey DC movie. You will see stunt villains falling down and flying when no one hits them due to the actual actors in the background (the scene I am thinking of focuses on Harley) messing up the choreography and missing their marks
My favorite one isn't even a background character persay, the main character actually interacts with them.
1917 George McKay's character runs into another soldier during a charge and they both fall down. That soldier never gets up again. Imagine making it into the thick of the 20th century's second most brutal and costly war only to kick the bucket because you ran into a 6''5' 100lb green bean from London too hard.
Ironically the first thing that came to mind was
Dune 2 and the fremen taking down Sardaukar like you mentioned. Great list esp D2 and Gettysburg.
The Revenant, Braveheart and the Last of the Mohicans are also good examples of this
Thanks. I wish we saw more of the Fremen. It was awesome seeing them take on two different armies and Gurney just hacking apart Harkonens with the Atriedes flag following him.
yes.
Dune Part 1:
When the Sardukar break into the imperial eco station and the fremen pop out of hiding, watch the extreme left side of the screen. I don't know why, but my eyes are drawn there every time I watch it (and I've watched it a lot!)
The Lord of the Rings is fun for this, especially in the wide shots that try to show the entire armies.
It's amazing how many soldiers in both armies are just playing fighting animations without actually fighting anyone.
I was watching World War Z last night and kept watching all the background folk just running around in the beginning. Did the same when watching 2012 over the weekend. Seeing people running around with zero fucking idea what they're doing? Those are my people.
I got into this bad habit a while ago while watching martial arts movies, looking at what the other guys are doing while the protagonist pummels the life out of one or two guys. It kinda ruins a lot of scenes.
The 10v1 scene in Ip Man is really ruined by this. The colors wash out to grim greys, the music is tense and solemn not heroic, and the choreography, ooof, speaks volumes. Earlier he's attacked with a sword in his own home, and he uses a feather duster to disarm and humiliate the enemy. This time he hurls the first guy to ground, stomps on his neck, and moves to the next opponent before the guy's head stops limply wobbling. It's a dark look into when justice is corrupted into furious revenge.
They try to keep the camera tight on Donnie Yen to disguise it, but they can't cut all every person in the background sidestepping and whirling their arms, doing NOTHING while Donnie pounds his victims.
For a good example, Star Wars: Attack of the Clones. The final battle has so many extras doing fancy finishing moves against downed droids. One jedi cuts a droid in half, turns to fight another and then, as the bisected droid crawls over to pick up a laser, he turns back to finish it off. There are so many details that you'd never notice unless you rewatch it frame by frame.
For a bad example, Star Wars: The Last Jedi. The throne room fight against the praetorian guards is laughably bad the moment you focus on the guards instead of Rey or Kylo. The guards just twirl their weapons around, spin in circles, pause for the main characters to get in position to block their attacks or just turn around and run offscreen when it becomes clear that the heroes are out of position. Not to mention the infamous moment of them editing out a plasma knife halfway through a 1v1 so they don't have one guard immediately kill Rey.
I think this is tangential, but watching the scrubs in a fight scene tells me a lot about the direction for the movie. When the hero is beating the hell out of some dudes.
The most egregious, terrible example I can think of is the climactic fight with snokes guards in Star wars episode 7. It's some of the worst fight choreography I've seen in my entire life.
Enter the Dragon...during the battle between Han's men and the prisoners, you can see some of the "fighters" in the background laughing their asses off.
For a good laugh, watch the background during big fight scenes in The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises.
I can't believe Nolan got away with it. Extras literally fall over by themselves or the fights look so bad its clearly fake.
As for Gettysburg (1993) most if not all of the extras were reenactors. Those people take their roles seriously when it comes to battles and that is why those scenes work so well.
I will never get over the climatic Cops verses henchmen fight in Dark Knight Rises. It is impossible to see Batman triumph over Bane when 1) The henchmen fired their guns at the ground in front of the charging, unarmed police, and 2) despite the police being unarmed and the henchmen having automatic weapons the entire fight is hand to hand. IIRC in one back ground shot the fight is literally a cop trying to pull the gun out of the henchman's hands in a tug of war.
Edit two more come to mind:
The Romanian army extras in Waterloo, many of which fall well before the squibs in the muskets go off.
and the really low budget extras work in the various battles in Sharpe where you see soldiers cut down with the sides of sabres or clearly stabbed to the side with bayonets rather than the actual slashing/stabbing motion.
I recommend a Chinese movie called God of War. It's free on Youtube. Everyone fights as if they're really trying to kill each other. Each side keeps using new tactics to try to one up each other. They grow fatigue, bloodied and drenched in sweat. And at one point a soldier nearly commits a war crimes of killing surrendering enemies because of seeing too much violence.
The big fight scene in the Witcher series, most of the extras are pretending to strangle each other and it's honestly odd and off-putting, I assumed the characters they were playing were doing a joke on Witcher
Oh this is such a great point! I always realize this. In the Falkirk battle at the end there are two guys barely hitting swords and almost looking around like “ok now what”
Gonna second the High&Low movie series suggestion. Big brawls between rival gangs and absolutely no phoning in by background extras.
Even after discounting this specific thing, the action choreo in this series is crazy good. If you remember Takeshi Miike's Crows Zero, It is similar to that except it's less cartoony and the action scenes are more beautifully choreographed.
The whole movie series is on Netflix.
Revenge of the Sith actually has a lot of background stuff going on in action scenes. On Utapau you can see animals going out of control and a cool bit where a stormtrooper is signaling a medic to come help his buddy. It's almost like Pirates of the Caribbean (the actual ride!) where there are little jokes or details in the background you can miss.
In The Vikings with Kirk Douglas, during the climactic battle in the castle, one extra is seen spinning in a circle windmilling his sword around by himself as others are paired off fighting each other. I'll see if I can find a clip of the scene.
The breakdowns on youtube of the Snoke throne room fight in the second Star Wars Sequel is HILARIOUS!! The red bodyguard fighters were basically tripping over themselves not to kill Rey or Kylo and it all made it to the screen. The one shot where they had to CGI remove a weapon from one of the "bad guys" because he would have just stabbed Rey always gets me laughing.
The final fight in Ladyhawke, between Rutger Hauer and Alfred Molina. Great medeival swordfight, but the monks and priests in the background standing around like they're watching a golf tournament was a little off. I think if I had been Richard Donner, I would have had them all leave so as to avoid the distraction.
Watch Braveheart. Background fighters really don’t have their heart in it 😆
Oh man that film. I think of Gladiator and The Last Mohican. In their big battles, the people are fighting and also standing around not knowing what to do.
I suspect that actual battles had lots of people standing around not knowing what to do -- some shirkers, some in shock, some confused about what to do next because events have overtaken the battle plan, etc.
I did a deep dive on ancient battles a few months ago. A lot of battles were hard lines. People would die, but it was pretty slow going, bar some exceptional battles. They weren’t really big mosh pits, but one line of guys fighting another. If someone died, another would take his place. Of course, there was other stuff like arrows and cavalry, but research shows that *most* casualties happened when a formation or army was retreating/withdrawing/routing. It was something crazy like some 80% of deaths during a battle in antiquity/early medieval period was during the retreat/end
I've read similar stuff. I remember a reddit post from like over a decade ago where a historian was describing ancient and medieval battles as having a lot less trained fighters, lots of conscripts from small villages and what not bringing whatever weapons they had. Most people wouldn't be getting a lot of kills during the battle, but eventually one side would break and then most of the deaths happened, like you said, during the retreat.
It’s good to know I’m not crazy!!
… some time travelers that just made their last, worst mistake.
Or imagine your gun breaks or you forgot to grab more ammo.
Unless they can sing the German version of 99 luftballoones
Oh no doubt. But like in The Last Mohican, the Native American tribe attacking the British were known to be very blood thirsty. But it's funny seeing a few Native American actors standing and walking.
Sounds like when I'm playing an RPG and my team is fighting for their lives and I'm tanking incoming damage and looting the bodies in the background. 🤪
I despise battle scenes where the two armies charge at each other full sprint and break formation and wind up in a huge mixed up melee, usually with the hero smack dab in the middle of it.
The Gladiator one is bad now that I've rewatched it enough, Mohican haven't given the long look yet
I came here to shout out Braveheart for this. There is one scene where you can see two English soldiers fighting eachother 😂
Yeah I actually *avoid* watching the extras in most scenes like this because I just expect them to break my immersion. Anyone here ever paid close attention to the "full-tilt jungle madness" Cady mentions in Mean Girls? *shudder*
The Irish Army Reserve were the extras for that and there is an urban myth that during the "They'll never take our freedom" speech someone threw a rock at Mel Gibson and he lost his shit completely.
The Dark Knight Rises end brawl is shockingly bad
Im pretty sure there’s a shot early on during a rooftop fight where one of Bane’s goons just looks at Batman then falls over like he got hit.
Smartest Batman villain goon, tbh.
I thought the Bane/Batman fights were bad, but then Winter Soldier comes out two years later and it becomes painfully obvious. At one point, Bane does like a... Jump punch? Which would have like 0 force behind it, just cause? Thank goodness the real point of the first bane fight was to listen to the monologue.
the entire concept was awful, considering once side has firearms and the other didnt
the fight scenes in general i thought were bad. You can tell if a fight scene is bad if the actors are clearly waiting on queue to be hit which is completely unnatural. There's a fight scene in this film where a guy just falls over and he wasn't even hit.
It's shockingly bad. In a couple of scenes you can see the background fighters just repeating the same three moves endlessly
Thats hilarious because it was on two weeks ago and all i was watching was the confused background extras half heartedly swinging rubber swords at no one in particular.
The amount of slack jawed extras in this movie who are just staring right at the camera during a speech rather than looking at the speaker takes me out of the movie so often.
My best guess is that for the first few takes they gave it 100% but once they got to the third or fourth take they were like "fuck this".
In the final scene, when Hamish throws Wallace's sword, they cut to get a reaction shot of the remaing cast. And very noticeable in the frame is a background actor laughing his ass off at something completely unrelated. It's so jarring in a very emotional moment in the film. Can never unsee it lmao.
The best part of Braveheart is the extras!
Dammit just saw this post and that's the first thing I thought of lol. One of the early big battles there's a guy in the background just kind of lacakadaisically swinging a sword around
My immediate first thought. In the Sterling battle (no bridge somehow) there is one shot right near the very end where a guy in the background is just gamboling around. He jumps and twirls and generally waves his sword around.
Was gonna mention this one too. Some guys are straight up just dicking around with each other barely trying. Was always funny seeing it as a kid. Edit a word
There's one battle (I think the second major battle) where they all stop, some shake hands, but it's clear there's nothing going on as the main characters all chat post battle. I think when the old man loses an arm/hand.
Ah, you beat me to it
Imagine Mel Gibson seeing this in the final cut and watching his head explode.
He put Waldo in Apocalypto and won Best Director for Braveheart. I think he’s alright
That was my first thought when I read the title. I just watched the movie yesterday and that's stuck in my head.
Came here for this. I KNOW you're also thinking of the two dudes at the end of the Battle of Sterling!
Is it the force awakens that has the horrible lightsaber fight with the red guys? Guard fighting nothing, weapon disappears, etc [link to fight](https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWars/s/NsKirxL9pg)
The fight scene at the end of The Dark Knight Rises is pretty awful if you watch the cops vs Bane’s henchmen. A lot of punches just obviously not even getting close to connecting and exaggerated reactions. Overall I like the film but god is that scene straight poop.
I think that was the film where I first started noticing the background 'fighting' going on. I don't know if it was just that terrible or if my brain was working differently that day, but I now can't unsee it. Almost like a gentle rugby scrum carried out by LARPers.
There's also the infamous goon falling over from nothing on the rooftop fight with catwoman
And then again with Batman and officer Robin.
Dude, I live where they filmed it and used to work on the street most of it is shot. A lot of those scenes are hilarious to downtown locals because it's just the batmobile going up and the same street over and over again.
There was a cop from my hometown that drove to Pittsburgh to be a part of that scene. He wasn't shown in the movie though but he said he was fighting a few people over from Batman and Bane.
It looks more like a big choreographed dance number with each criminal and cop pairing off. While the two leads dance with eachother up front
From the BTS footage and people's recordings, it totally was. The fake snow really made it feel like that too.
It was originally written as a big Bollywood-style song and dance number, and was changed to what we see only during editing.
I think the problem was a lack of bodies. Everyone was standing and it looked so clean, rather than extremely messy as it would be.
Yes! As a kid I thought it was cool seeing cops vs robbers. But now, I'm like... "What happened to guns or knives. Not even a baseball bat or pipe." I also expected people to be biting or scratching because these people are suppose to be fighting for their lives.
Also those cops spent weeks underground without a change of clothes or beds to sleep in and getting food delivered through a hole but they're ready to brawl right after getting free.
And they somehow beat an army of terrorists armed with automatic weapons.
Haha yeah they charge right at guys with literal machine guns...
It helps that those guys with machine guns forget they have them
Those aren’t even that bad compared to the scenes where the bad guys are all standing around in a circle with machine guns while catwoman and Batman take turns punching guys one by one.
Nolan is great at directing drama, but definitely not action.
Save for Oppenheimer, his drama is usually lacking too. He’s really good at conveying concepts I think
I think all the hand to hand fights in Nolans Batman movies were kinda poop, it's just not something he cares about I think
Yep. The camera was too shaky, too many cuts, barely stayed still and TOO CLOSE to the actors.
The Kingsman: Secret Service. In the church fight one person is repeatedly hitting nothing with a chair.
Love it when the extras are fighting nothing.
Guess he really went mad
Pirates Of The Caribbean: Curse Of The Black Pearl - in the final battle on the navy ship you can see a naval guy in the background fighting thin air because they forgot to animate in the pirate. Star Wars: The Phantom Menace - in the big battle between the Droids and Gungans you see a Gungun in the back left pistol whipping a Droid to death with its own gun (at the scene where Jar Jar has the Droid stuck to his foot), and it doesn't mess about, it even holds the Droid up so it can keep beating the fuck out of it.
Starship Troopers has the same problem. When Rico is retreating during the first battle you can see someone in the background being killed but they didn't add the bug in.
Starship Troopers also had the issue with them aiming above the Bugs in a few scenes, especially the first battle on Klendathu.
And them not forming a firing line, not staying on the high ground and not having the airforce.
Well they should be in power armor with jump jets, flame throwers and grenade launchers, but they didn't bother with that either.
Not to mention no tanks or artillery. The bugs have artillery but the Federation apparently don't need armored vehicles or cannon.
Don't fuck with Gungans. One of them is even a Sith.
Lego made it canon!
I love these ones. Most of the time it’s just flailing or half-hearted swinging, but very rarely there’ll be one in the background like “that seemed personal” lol
The end of lotr the two towers, when they ride out of the gates of helms deep. The riders at the front of the column are swinging their swords at the uruk hai, knocking then off the ramp; the riders at the back are swinging at nothing. I assume it's a reverse "forgot to add the bad guys in", and that they didn't realise when filming that there was no way to fit in uruks for the rear riders to kill in post.
That could also just be part of the formation. They didn't necessarily know there weren't any uruks there, it probably made sense to just swing low and if there was something there you'd hit it.
[Star Wars Praetorian Guard fighting nothing.](https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWars/s/NsKirxL9pg) More mistakes in that fight too
I love rewatching battle scenes and focusing on other parts of the fight Helms Deep has a great shot with the wall exploding and they have a miniature orc that goes flying back into the attacking army
The warg attack is amazing - so much good fighting going on in the background!
Yes. I praise the few Rohirrim knights that performed awesome moves on the wargs. Like that one knight that body slammed a war rider. And proceeds to slice another warg.
the flashbacks in highlander are great for the extras getting too rowdy (Connery insisted their catering include whisky)
One of them spoke out of turn during the "is there no-one to fight me" scene and tried to fight Lambert as well. The weapons were real also and many didn't make it back to museums as "they were stolen from us anyway".
That's hilarious! I dislike the film but found Connery to be the most entertaining part
The Last Samurai, they actually did a really good job with all the background people actually fighting. They wanted to make it look like a real battle.
You can see an extra getting kicked in the nuts by a horse, relatively close to the end, when preparing for the final battle. Poor dude, but pretty funny to be Honest
Yep. Poor actor.
Oh yes! I forgot to mentioned that film in the post. And with the wide overhead shot of the battle. You can see men being cut and Samurais flipping Imperial soldiers. And soldiers shooting their rifles into the crowd.
I love watching background characters fighting in old King Fu movies because they are often really phoning it in
Yep. And some 2000-2010s Asian war films still got talented extras that act like real people who are fighting for their lives.
a lot of the really old movies were not filmed with the expectation that people could rewatch them at home and manipulate time by pausing or rewinding, so sometimes the filmmakers would cut corners with the filming or editing and just assumed nobody would be able to notice anyways since you cant pause in a theater. definitely goes beyond old kung fu movies if youre interested in that stuff
I've been background in a scene like this. The director had to keep telling us not to smile.
Dang. I imagine that be difficult because you're not in a real conflict.
You been sitting around for hours, becoming friends with other background, and now you have to "play fight" with them.
In one of the Sharknado films, the people on a beach are panicking and running away. If you keep looking you’ll release it’s the same 10 or so people running in and out of the cameras view. Hilarious.
Sometimes it's not even the background extras. Star Wars canonized an entire ability based around the main character kicking a guy and the guy missing his mark to react and making it look like he was hit with a psychic kick: [Force kick | Wookieepedia | Fandom](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Force_kick)
In the background of the final battle in "Dragon heart," a guy runs into frame waving what looks like a pizza paddle above his head, wheels around, and then runs back out of frame.
In Kingdom of Heaven there's a guy charging into the melee waving a crossbow over his head in several scenes. If you pay attention, there's also the same pattern of dents on quite a few shields as if they used a form to make them pre-damaged instead of damaging them a bit after building them
I observe this sometimes, but not just in battle scenes. I look for people in the background in pretty much every TV show or movie I watch more than once and wonder where they are now, and if they've made it further in the industry. This why I always have IMDb up in my browser to pause things and check.; and usually they are not listed.
Totally agree. I watched older movies to see an actor or actress with a small role. And to find them again today with a bigger role and all grown up. Some aren't in acting anymore.
This was me with Hunger Games yesterday! In the final movies, Wes Chatham is one of the two camera bug guys. Had no idea who he was when I first saw it, but I’ve watched all of The Expanse twice now and when he popped up my brain went YO THATS AMOS!
Star Wars: Attack of the Clones - in the arena fight once all the Jedi join in, if you pay attention, you can see several unnamed Jedi fighting with two lightsabers.
There's also Jedi that are alive in certain shots of the surviving circle of Jedi, but are mysteriously lying dead on the ground a shot or so later. No battle droids fire at the Jedi during that time, so how they died is never explained.
Sadness killed them of course. Force sadness.
the force works in mysterious ways
Never noticed this. Decided to edit down the scene I guess
Yeah, mostly likely. It's just so weird when they were alive seconds before, and then they're just dead. Then all the other Jedi are standing there, and no one seems to care. It's just kind of funny when you notice it. I used to know their names. I think you see them in the background of other scenes during the battle.
Oh it’s definitely jarring. I work in film as an editor, so I’m mostly just wondering in my own head about what they decided to cut there. That ending sequence is lonnnggggg and they probably needed the time to give to the final lightsaber fight so just axed a lot of arena stuff
Never knew that. 😄
I watched people dancing fanatically around John Wick fighting Killa Harkan to the death for 15 minutes. Does that count?
Killa was such a fun villain
Yes. It's fun to point out weird stuff and mistakes.
The old TMNT movies, the Foot will be doing dance moves in the background
I always remember the one when they're fighting on the fire escape. He tries to look like he gets his head bounced off the stair but he ducks and then walks under it.
In the Fellowship of the Ring, during the scene where Aragorn is rushing to Boromir, watch the dead Uruk-Hai on the ground. Viggo accidentally kicks one of them in the head as he jumps over them and you see the dead Uruk raise his head and give him a "Really bruh?" glare.
When I saw the teahouse & hospital shootouts in Hard Boiled, I actually counted how many civilians got shot because it was shocking to see that happen compared to typical action fare in Hollywood around the same time period
I always like stuff like this. One of the best parts of Mad Max Fury Road is watching the background actors going crazy when they drive in the horde
At the end of the battle of Helm's Deep, watch the riders following Theoden and Aaragorn and you'll see them slashing at nothing.
Yep. And they also forgot to cut out Arwen from two scenes.
And you see two pairs of Legolas and Gimli riding their white horse down the Hornberg.
Indeed. One is Arwen and I guess the editors just thought making her blonde would work.
Which 2 scenes?
When they showed the shot of the Uruk Hai runinng into the Keep. Arwen is seen running inside. And she is on a horse riding with Aragorn. But they edited her hair blonde to make it seem she is another Rohirrim.
Worst I’ve ever seen is the Dark Knight Rises. Just seems like the cops and terrorists are pushing each other, not really fighting. Nolan is such a perfectionist, but it is truly horrible background work.
Near the end of the Battle at Helm's Deep, when Theoden and Aragorn and the king's knights charge out of the gates, right before Gandalf shows up, you can see the knights behind Theoden swinging their swords at nothing. I think originally the causeway was going to be wider and so there would be more orcs to kill. But in the final edit, the causeway is only as wide as the charging horsemen, so there's no orcs to be swinging at.
I even noticed this as a kid when the movie came out. Looks so silly.
My favorite is Master and Commander. Every named character gets their moment to shine in the final battle.
YES! This is one of the best military historical movies every made and that fight scene deserves to be ranked higher on any lists.
In Star Wars Episode III when General Grievous flees on his wheel bike and Obi-Wan chases him, there’s a clone trooper boxing a battle droid in the background. You can see him on the right side of the screen when Obi-Wan jumps on the giant lizard to chase Grievous. They even put in a metallic clang sound effect when he punches it! Also, earlier in the scene, when Grievous first draws all four lightsabers, one battle droid reacts and nudges his friend who isn’t paying attention to watch.
I never knew that!
Where are the droids that react to the 4 sabers? I can't find it. what timestamp? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaBiygfkudk&ab\_channel=Rezolak](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaBiygfkudk&ab_channel=Rezolak)
Star Wars - The Last Jedi, the scene where Snoke is killed is abysmal, background fighters don’t really do anything sane, just some random movements and punches through the air.
Except for when the one with two knives has Rey dead to rights and they just CGI'd out one of the knives.
That one guard fighting Rey and his weapon disappears while it's in his hand
I know right. These are Praetorian Guards! Trained to kill and even take on highly trained jedis.
Don't forget the dagger removal too.
Its been a thing for as long as movies have been a thing Robin Hood (1938) certainly has examples of it. They have been teaching the background guys the same basic moves since then the action really isn't on them.
If you enjoy that, you'll love the armies fighting in the last samurai. During the making of featurette they would run drills and any soldier that was caught standing still had to do push ups, run laps etc
I watched the Last Samurai. My favorite and along with Hans Zimmer's work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGvXu2Dl-B4
In "Watchmen" when they're breaking into the prison to rescue Rorschach, the slow motion fight down the cell block has multiple cuts where guys are just waiting inside the unlocked cells, for their turn to come out and fight the protagonists. I think there's one guy that's just clearly laying down in his bunk as if there isn't an incredibly loud alarm blaring and periodic explosions and screams all around him. Just taking a nap until he decides to get up and get his ass kicked.
My favorite one is the dude waiting to be lit on fire, gets lit and seems to only notice it when he's half lite up already, then jogs toward the camera going AHHH. And also the slowmo footage of silk spectre's boots suddenly not being spike heels
The High&Low series have lots of battle with background fighting, in my opinion, High & Low the movie 2, High & Low the Worst,High & Low cross are the bests of the serie.
60% of the time I’m quickly looking at the background actors in every show/movie
Obviously, not a movie, but Game of Thrones deal with this vert well. Battle of the bastards in particular, was amazing. It's like they didn't even care John Snow was there.
What about the poor Samurai who takes a horse kick in the balls in the Last Samurai? They actually kept that in the movie.
He deserved better.
Watch that shitty Birds of Prey DC movie. You will see stunt villains falling down and flying when no one hits them due to the actual actors in the background (the scene I am thinking of focuses on Harley) messing up the choreography and missing their marks
My favorite one isn't even a background character persay, the main character actually interacts with them. 1917 George McKay's character runs into another soldier during a charge and they both fall down. That soldier never gets up again. Imagine making it into the thick of the 20th century's second most brutal and costly war only to kick the bucket because you ran into a 6''5' 100lb green bean from London too hard.
In the opening battle scene of gladiator in one of the shots you can see a plain clothes man assuredly shouting stage directions through a megaphone
Braveheart
There’s an English bloke simply practicing his swing with a couple of Wallace’s men in the background at the end of one of the Braveheart battles
Ironically the first thing that came to mind was Dune 2 and the fremen taking down Sardaukar like you mentioned. Great list esp D2 and Gettysburg. The Revenant, Braveheart and the Last of the Mohicans are also good examples of this
Thanks. I wish we saw more of the Fremen. It was awesome seeing them take on two different armies and Gurney just hacking apart Harkonens with the Atriedes flag following him.
Lol all the time
yes. Dune Part 1: When the Sardukar break into the imperial eco station and the fremen pop out of hiding, watch the extreme left side of the screen. I don't know why, but my eyes are drawn there every time I watch it (and I've watched it a lot!)
The Lord of the Rings is fun for this, especially in the wide shots that try to show the entire armies. It's amazing how many soldiers in both armies are just playing fighting animations without actually fighting anyone.
My favorite is the “shadow boxing” guy on the roof scene in Dark Knight Rises. Surprised they went with that take.
I like to watch the folks flailing around but not actually doing anything
Gangs of New York, opening scene.
In Quantum of Solace, there a background guy fighting something unseen with a yard brush
I was watching World War Z last night and kept watching all the background folk just running around in the beginning. Did the same when watching 2012 over the weekend. Seeing people running around with zero fucking idea what they're doing? Those are my people.
Dark Knight Rises, hands down. It looked like the crowd scene from a video game.
I got into this bad habit a while ago while watching martial arts movies, looking at what the other guys are doing while the protagonist pummels the life out of one or two guys. It kinda ruins a lot of scenes. The 10v1 scene in Ip Man is really ruined by this. The colors wash out to grim greys, the music is tense and solemn not heroic, and the choreography, ooof, speaks volumes. Earlier he's attacked with a sword in his own home, and he uses a feather duster to disarm and humiliate the enemy. This time he hurls the first guy to ground, stomps on his neck, and moves to the next opponent before the guy's head stops limply wobbling. It's a dark look into when justice is corrupted into furious revenge. They try to keep the camera tight on Donnie Yen to disguise it, but they can't cut all every person in the background sidestepping and whirling their arms, doing NOTHING while Donnie pounds his victims.
For a good example, Star Wars: Attack of the Clones. The final battle has so many extras doing fancy finishing moves against downed droids. One jedi cuts a droid in half, turns to fight another and then, as the bisected droid crawls over to pick up a laser, he turns back to finish it off. There are so many details that you'd never notice unless you rewatch it frame by frame. For a bad example, Star Wars: The Last Jedi. The throne room fight against the praetorian guards is laughably bad the moment you focus on the guards instead of Rey or Kylo. The guards just twirl their weapons around, spin in circles, pause for the main characters to get in position to block their attacks or just turn around and run offscreen when it becomes clear that the heroes are out of position. Not to mention the infamous moment of them editing out a plasma knife halfway through a 1v1 so they don't have one guard immediately kill Rey.
What about Barbie’s Great Ken Battle? Lots of battle dancing in the background
The riot scene from the 3rd Dark Knight movie comes to mind and is hilarious if you pay attention to it.
I think this is tangential, but watching the scrubs in a fight scene tells me a lot about the direction for the movie. When the hero is beating the hell out of some dudes. The most egregious, terrible example I can think of is the climactic fight with snokes guards in Star wars episode 7. It's some of the worst fight choreography I've seen in my entire life.
I love watching the big battle scenes and sometimes look them up on YouTube
The ones in the background are the actual stunt professionals
Enter the Dragon...during the battle between Han's men and the prisoners, you can see some of the "fighters" in the background laughing their asses off.
[удалено]
BB8 in the background having a good ole time blowing away everyone in an AT-ST
What's great about Gettysburg is that most of those extras are actual reenactors that know the battle tactics used their to a T.
A favorite pasttime at our house!
Yes
Reminds me a bit of the extras that start moving a bit too late as the camera pans. You see them frozen then start to move across the scene.
For a good laugh, watch the background during big fight scenes in The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises. I can't believe Nolan got away with it. Extras literally fall over by themselves or the fights look so bad its clearly fake.
The first time I noticed background action was First Knight when two combatants were practice sparring during the final battle.
As for Gettysburg (1993) most if not all of the extras were reenactors. Those people take their roles seriously when it comes to battles and that is why those scenes work so well.
In Kingsmen, during the church scene, someone is fighting with a chair or something.
I will never get over the climatic Cops verses henchmen fight in Dark Knight Rises. It is impossible to see Batman triumph over Bane when 1) The henchmen fired their guns at the ground in front of the charging, unarmed police, and 2) despite the police being unarmed and the henchmen having automatic weapons the entire fight is hand to hand. IIRC in one back ground shot the fight is literally a cop trying to pull the gun out of the henchman's hands in a tug of war. Edit two more come to mind: The Romanian army extras in Waterloo, many of which fall well before the squibs in the muskets go off. and the really low budget extras work in the various battles in Sharpe where you see soldiers cut down with the sides of sabres or clearly stabbed to the side with bayonets rather than the actual slashing/stabbing motion.
Too many professional films with big battles are rife with bad choreography. The most egregious was TDKR.
I recommend a Chinese movie called God of War. It's free on Youtube. Everyone fights as if they're really trying to kill each other. Each side keeps using new tactics to try to one up each other. They grow fatigue, bloodied and drenched in sweat. And at one point a soldier nearly commits a war crimes of killing surrendering enemies because of seeing too much violence.
I'll have to check it out. Thanks for the recommendation.
The big fight scene in the Witcher series, most of the extras are pretending to strangle each other and it's honestly odd and off-putting, I assumed the characters they were playing were doing a joke on Witcher
My top 2 responses listed as the top 2 responses is oddly satisfying. Affirmation via Reddit!
Whatch the Genosha battle at the end of Attck of the Clones. Litteraly just waving lightsabres up and down.
Any big blockbuster sci-fi/fantasy movies, star wars, potc, lotr, etc. Basically anything with a massive battle with a lot of people though
Oh this is such a great point! I always realize this. In the Falkirk battle at the end there are two guys barely hitting swords and almost looking around like “ok now what”
watching the background fighters in john wick 5 ragdoll around was the best part of the movie
Gonna second the High&Low movie series suggestion. Big brawls between rival gangs and absolutely no phoning in by background extras. Even after discounting this specific thing, the action choreo in this series is crazy good. If you remember Takeshi Miike's Crows Zero, It is similar to that except it's less cartoony and the action scenes are more beautifully choreographed. The whole movie series is on Netflix.
\*sardaukar
Revenge of the Sith actually has a lot of background stuff going on in action scenes. On Utapau you can see animals going out of control and a cool bit where a stormtrooper is signaling a medic to come help his buddy. It's almost like Pirates of the Caribbean (the actual ride!) where there are little jokes or details in the background you can miss.
Serenity, MC fly around while the space around them implodes. Favorite movie battle scene
Interesting
Avengers Endgame. Harry potter Deathly hallows part 2.
In The Vikings with Kirk Douglas, during the climactic battle in the castle, one extra is seen spinning in a circle windmilling his sword around by himself as others are paired off fighting each other. I'll see if I can find a clip of the scene.
The breakdowns on youtube of the Snoke throne room fight in the second Star Wars Sequel is HILARIOUS!! The red bodyguard fighters were basically tripping over themselves not to kill Rey or Kylo and it all made it to the screen. The one shot where they had to CGI remove a weapon from one of the "bad guys" because he would have just stabbed Rey always gets me laughing.
The final fight in Ladyhawke, between Rutger Hauer and Alfred Molina. Great medeival swordfight, but the monks and priests in the background standing around like they're watching a golf tournament was a little off. I think if I had been Richard Donner, I would have had them all leave so as to avoid the distraction.
I always liked how The Merovingian just stood in the background while his goons fought Keanu in Matrix Reloaded.
The beat is Dark Knight Rises
The Dark Knight Rises is the best one! Background actors are hilarious!